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LB 41 
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:opy 1 



REMARKS 



ON THE 



DUT7 OF THE SBVERAZi STiLTZIS, 



IN REGARD TO 



PUBIilC EDUCATION. 



BY miLTER E. JOHJYSOJ^, 

PHISCIPAI. OP THE HIGH SCHOOI, OF PHIIADEIPHIA, AND PROFESSOR OF MECHA- 
NICS AND NATCHAL PHILOSOPHY, IN THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. 



PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BY WILLIAM SHARPLESS, No. 2 
DECATUR STREET. 

1830. 



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REMARKS, &c. 



A SYSTEM of education which may give to every 
member of American society, a portion of knowledge 
adequate to the discharge of his duties as a man and 
a citizen of the repubhc, is essential to the advance- 
ment of private interest, the maintenance of public 
virtue, the due appreciation of talents, the preserva- 
tion of a sacred regard to principle, and of a high 
tone of moral sentiment. A system which affords to 
such as are endued with superior capacities, the 
means of making proportional attainments, is also in- 
timately connected with the interest of the nation, at 
home, through those who administer, and abroad 
through those who represent our government 5 with 
the extension of just and liberal opinions in relation 
to the effect of free governments ; with the union and 
fraternity subsisting between the members of the con- 
federacy, and with the general character of the na- 
tion for liberal sentiments and grateful recollections. 

If these statements be just, we are led to ask un- 
der what authority the blessings of learning are to be 
secured to the nation ? The government of the Union 
has manifested no decided inclination to act efficiently 
in the matter. And as the legislative department has 
shown no disposition to exercise its acknowledged 
powers, in relation to this subject, even within the 
district where it possesses sole dominion, it is not to 
be expected that the same power should be extended 
over the whole nation, where a plausible, at least, if 
not valid Constitutional objection may be raised against 
its exercise ; — and much less are we to suppose that 
the concerns of education will supersede, in the minds 
of executive officers, the great subjects of war and 
peace, of commerce and revenue, of foreign embas- 
sies and international relations. These great, absorb- 
ing interests will, of necessity, continue to engross the 
attention and speculations of the active, aspiring can- 
didates for public distinctions and emoluments. "Hap- 
py will it be for the community, if those whom it 



delights to honour with a station in this department, 
shall be at all times found experimentally acquaint- 
ed with the advantages of a sound and finished edu- 
cation, united with commanding talents, and an in- 
tegrity above suspicion. A statesman with these 
qualifications cannot fail to exercise an important in- 
direct, if not immediate influence on the standard of 
taste, knowledge, and refinement throughout the land, 
and to stimulate, by countenance and example, what 
he may not be able to support by positive legal pro- 
visions. 

In proportion, however, as knowledge, whether 
elementary or profound, is to be regarded as a bless- 
ing, in the same degree is the want of it, to be esteem- 
ed a misfortune. Each and every portion of this 
Union has therefore an interest in the success of every 
effort to diffuse the means of education, separate from 
any calculation of profit and loss, and from any re- 
ference to the great and momentous national concern, 
already mentioned, as involved in this subject. In- 
deed there are various interests besides that of edu- 
cation, in which the nation at large has a deep stake 5 
yet the general legislature cannot, consistently with 
its prescribed powers, materially interfere. Such 
are the encouragement of agriculture, the bestowing 
of charters for local establishments, whose effects, 
notwithstanding, are felt far beyond the sphere of 
their immediate operation. Adverting to the manner 
in which llwse interests are, and must continue to be 
managed among us, we are furnished with an answer 
to our inquiry by what authority the benefits of learn- 
ing are to be conferred on the whole American com- 
munity. Several State legislatures have already 
practically settled the question, b^^ a long course 
of legislation on the subject. Others have content- 
ed themselves with partial, inconsiderable efforts, 
applied to a class of persons not the most likely to 
appreciate the blessings of knowledge, and least dis- 
posed to acknowledge an obligation which places 
them in a degraded relation to their fellow-citizens. 
A til ill! class of States are still wavering between a 
resolution to provide an eflicient system of educa- 



tion for themselves, and a vague, perhaps a vain 
hope, that something may still be expected from 
the liberality or the justice of the general govern- 
ment, towards this object. We cannot refrain from 
expressing in this place the admiration excited by 
the policy of one enlightened State, which while 
engaged in an enterprise for internal improvement, 
the grandest that our country has ever witnessed, 
perhaps that the genius of man has ever devised, 
simultaneously erected a system of universal as well 
as liberal education, by means of which more than 
eight thousand ordinary, and numerous superior 
seminaries are put into operation, and nearly 500,000 
youths of both sexes are annually admitted to the 
inestimable blessings of either solid and useful, or 
polite and finished education. To estimate justly the 
immense influence of that amount of talent which 
will thus be brought from a dormant to an active con- 
dition, is perhaps beyond the power of calculation. 

To behold its full display, we must search every 
cottage and farmhouse as well as every mansion, for 
the energy and enterprise, united with the firmness 
and sobriety of character which it has developed ; we 
must note the cliange from a devotion to material life 
and animal gratifications, to a pursuit of intellectual 
speculations 5 we must penetrate, in short, every bo- 
som made in any degree capable of being warmed by 
the radiance of genius, or filled with pure and lofty 
sentiments. 

An apprehension has sometimes been indulged, 
that the interests of the several States would become 
merged and lost in that of the confederation. No- 
thing is better fitted to preserve the distinct indivi- 
duality of the States, than reserving to themselves 
the superintendence of the concerns of education. 
Not only Vi'ill the thoughts and opinions of the inha- 
bitants of each State then possess a distinctive pecu- 
liarity, but the feelings, biases, and mental associa- 
tions, will also be found to retain a strong binding 
force between the individual and his native State. 
The earliest impressions are, to a great majority of 
mankind, the strongest that they ever realize. 



When, these impressions are made with the seal of 
virtue, they remain the pledges of future excellence ; 
when they are derived from circumstances in our 
social condition that possess genuine worth, or from 
institutions which assist to confer that worth, they en- 
chain the affections with a force which no subsequent 
changes of fortune can seven The attachment to 
our native State which we thus derive from her insti- 
tutions for education, is, however, perfectly consistent 
with an enlarged patriotism, embracing within its cir- 
cle every portion of our country, as well as with a 
liberal philanthropy that extends its good wishes, and 
would extend its good offices to every member of the 
human race. Indeed, one of the first effects of a li- 
beral system of education, on the minds and feelings 
of a community, is a display of more extended bene- 
volence, of a less niggardly parsimony, of a magnan- 
imity that can embrace sublime conceptions, of a pa- 
triotism that regards the greatness and glory as well 
as the quiet and happiness of the nation ; and both 
the one and the other, as paramount to the petty pro- 
fits, mean devices, and sordid calculations of mere 
self-interest. 

But perhaps it will be contended, that if a State 
possess eminent physical advantages, enjoying a sa- 
lubrious climate, a productive soil, navigable streams, 
and profitable mines, these may suffice to insure her 
rank and respectability among her neighbours. But let 
us not deceive ourselves. Mankind are not to be impos- 
ed upon by these substitutes for true greatness. They 
will not accept the vain display of acres and roods of 
arable, pasture, and woodland, as clear evidence of 
the greatness of a State. They are not yet such con- 
verts to the doctrines of materialism as to fancy that 
the spirit and intellect of society are wholly depen- 
dent on matter of any sort, and least of all on lifeless, 
brute matter, for their efficiency. A State may, with 
all these physical capabilities, proceed in a monoto- 
nous course of pecuniary prosperity, as injurious to 
its moral purity and its mental activity as the severest 
visitations of calamity. But this course can ter- 
minate only in weakness. Animal gratification may 



be as abundant, uninterrupted., and intense as the 
grossest appetite could desire, and yet nothing may 
be added to the permanent reputation of the State. 

The destiny of man is for activity and improve- 
ment ; the destiny of states, that would maintain a re- 
spectable rank, is for activity and improvement. 
Without this character of progressive advancement, 
any single State must soon feel its relative degrada- 
tion, must feel, (if there be a feeling in the commu- 
nity,) the mortifying sense of insignificance. 

Unless, then, the moral and intellectual eminence 
of a great state, correspond to its physical advanta- 
ges, the latter rather redound to its disgrace than to 
its credit. The lover of his country walks by the 
streams and mountains of his native land, and asks 
himself— what are the destinies of this physical Ely- 
sium ? what are the glorious realities to which the 
sages, and bards, and patriots of our country have, for 
the last half century, been aiming the labours of their 
minds, the glow of their eloquence, the inspiration of 
their verse ? Is it to witness these vales which might 
vie with Tempe in amenity, these rivers to which 
Peneus and Tiber are but puny rills, — swarming with 
hordes of mere grovelling worms in human shape ? 
to see these noble forests levelled to give place to a 
rank and poisonous growth of sleeping plants, with 
the form only of God's image — breathing only to ex- 
hale a moral pestilence — and to turn into a pandemo- 
nium what might otherwise be a paradise ? 

The question presses itself on the whole, and every 
part of the nation, whether our citizens shall dream 
away existence in inglorious eas«, following the blind 
impulses of animal passion ; whether they shall pur- 
sue the servile track of imitation, from age to age 5 
whether they shall say, and believe, and do, just as 
much as their fathers, and no more ; or whether they 
shall obey the dictates of sound reason, adopt the re- 
sults of faithful experience, be alive and awake to the 
dearest interests of humanity, as well as to all the 
beauties and glories of nature by which they are sur- 
rounded 5 shall strike out new paths in which to mount 
to perfection j and shall have a political, a philosophi- 




_ 019 847 562 2 

8 

cal, a moral, and religious faith of their own, unbias- 
sed by the absurd and arbitrary dogmas of sophists 
and demagogues and bigots on the one hand, or of 
libertines, disorganizers, and infidels on the other? 

These are questions on which each separate State 
of this Union, which has not already settled the point, 
is deeply interested in deciding ; inasmuch as on the 
promptitude and correctness of the decision, depends 
in a great measure the prosperity of its present, and 
the character of its future generations. Those States 
which shall have the wisdom and foresight to adopt 
sound and salutary systems of public education, will 
no longer feel the mortification of being regarded as 
the objects of derision to a whole nation, the more 
awkward and ridiculous, in proportion to their supe- 
rior bulk. Their chief magistracy will be honourable 
and independent ; because well informed constituents 
will know their own dignity to be degraded when 
their sovereign authority is delegated to the hands of 
drivelling imbecility. Their courts of justice will be 
upright, learned, and wise, because their decisions 
must be submitted to the scrutiny of a discerning pub- 
lic, the humblest member of which can detect errors, 
inconsistencies, and partialities. Their statute book 
will not exhibit a tissue of clumsy enactments, each 
vieing with its predecessors in absurdity \ because 
ignorance will no longer be deemed an essential re- 
quisite In a legislator. Their cities will echo to the 
voice of honest labour, greeted with the frequent 
interchange of courtesies and kindness. Their sons 
shall be distinguished for elevated sentiments, raising 
them equally from that sordidness which stoops to 
grasp at petty dishonest gains, and from that contempt- 
ible pride which shrinks from a pursuit of honest and 
industrious callings , while their daughters shall be 
regarded with that sacred delicacy which revolts at 
the thought of an unhallowed purpose, and with that 
chivalrous pride which scorns to impose on them the 
menial offices of life. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 847 562 2 



HoUinger Corp. 
pH 8.5 



